Why we owe ‘Dunner’ a debt of gratitude

DEVELOPERS have had a raw deal. Anybody who built something big during the bubble has been cast as reckless and greedy. It’s not a fair portrayal: many of them got caught up in the madness, carried on a wave that promised to deliver eternal prosperity.

But along comes a man like Sean Dunne, and it’s easy to see why developers have such a bad name.

This guy is straight out of central casting for the role of The Developer. On Good Friday, Dunne declared for bankruptcy in the USA. On Easter Sunday, he rose again, gracing the pages of the Sunday Independent with a missive, explaining to the Irish people why they will bear most of his debts, estimated at between €500m and €1b.

In the letter, Dunne compared himself not only to Jesus Christ, but also to Saddam Hussein. The latter comparison was concerned not with his character, but with how he has been hounded by NAMA. This, he said, has been in a manner usually reserved for murderous despots. Seanie, once a ‘master of the universe’, now sees himself as a victim.

It’s all a long way from the heady days when Dunne bestrode the stage of business, a thrusting and smart example of how the Irish were going to take over the world.

Dunne was brash and he loved to flash the cash. He had the trophy wife, Gayle Killilea, a blonde socialite, who, unfortunately for Hollywood, is not a bimbo, but an astute operator in her own right.

The couple got married on a yacht once owned by Aristotle Onassis. Their nuptials were graced with phone messages from Bertie Ahern and Charlie McCreevy.

Legend has it that Seanie had a Bass tap installed in the private bar of his Ballsbridge mansion to cater for Ahern’s beer of choice.

Their relationship epitomised how politicians and developers, together, were reshaping this country.

When Ahern was invited to address the House of Commons, in London, and the House of Congress, in Washington, who better to accompany him than this symbol of all that was great about Ireland.

‘Dunner’ and Gayle went along to represent d’oul country. In Washington, Gayle felt shame. Nothing to do with her hubby or Ahern, but she was really cheesed off that the Irish media contingent failed to join the standing ovation to Ireland’s great leader.

“They sat still and stony-faced, as if they were reporting on the Nuremberg trials,” Gayle wrote the following week, in the Sunday Independent.

“Bertie inspired five standing ovations as he worked his way through his historic, and at times emotional, speech. The Irish media didn’t budge an inch.

“Even the most cynical theatre critic would offer a polite clap at the end of a detested performance. But, on this momentous occasion, the Irish media didn’t see fit to even give a subdued applause when Bertie finished.”

Those lowlife hacks. They just couldn’t bring themselves to don the green jersey, to stand four square with a patriot like ‘Dunner’, as he applauded the greatest Irishman since Daniel O’Connell, or, possibly, since Brian Boru.

Among ‘Dunner’s’ many attributes, the one he referenced most often was his toughness. He was a tough guy. He liked to reference his “balls”. This manifested itself primarily in two ways, while he was leading the country to greatness. Whenever in conflict, he rushed to use the law as a weapon to sue the pants off all opponents. This was a matter of threatening people who had fewer resources than himself that he had the capacity to ruin them.

The other manifestation of his toughness was how focused he was in making business decisions. The most famous expression of this testicular fortitude, which he loved to relate, was the story of how he became the ‘Baron of Ballsbridge’.

When the Jurys site in Ballsbridge was being fought-over, ‘Dunner’ was reclining on holiday in Thailand, with his wife. She walked into their bedroom and he asked her to pick a number between 50 and 100. She plumped for 75, because that was the year of her birth. With that, ‘Dunner’ phoned in a bid of €475m for the site, which was successful. On such whims, greatness is thrust on those who have the ability to grab.

His generosity knew no bounds. One detail that has emerged in various actions taken by NAMA is an allegation that he has given his wife up to €10m since 2005. That money may now be beyond the reach of any debt-collecting agencies.

Then, after the party ended, and the walls came tumbling down, our hero showed his measure as a man. When the going got tough, ‘Dunner’ got going. He took off and left the country to its own devices, because, weighed down with begrudgery, it was no longer worthy of a giant like he. He moved lock, stock and barrel to Connecticut, leaving nothing behind him but debts approaching €1bn.

Before leaving, he showed how much things had changed when his name came up in a High Court action. The estate agents, CBRE, were suing him for unpaid fees, but Seanie was no longer the tough guy who waved the law in the faces of his enemies.

He tried to have the action postponed, on the basis that he was suffering from swine flu. The judge wasn’t buying it, though, and demanded that he produce either evidence, or himself, to the court. On the day before he was to present, he settled the action. CBRE are among the list of creditors that litter Seanie’s bankruptcy application.

His name came up in the High Court again, in 2011, after he had fled. This time, a judge lashed him for wasting court time, for suing a former employee over a relatively small amount of money. ‘Dunner’ hadn’t even shown up for the case, but the judge realised that his fingerprints were all over it. At issue was a cleaning bill for €22,000, a long way from the hundreds of millions that ‘Dunner’ owes.

Will we ever see him back on these shores again? Unlikely. Perhaps we are not worthy of one as beautiful as he. The final lines of his plea for love, last week, sum up this giant.

“We only get to walk the fairways of life once, and while I am 58 years old, I feel like 48, think like 38 and, thankfully, I get to act like I am 28. If life is equated to a game of golf, I feel I still have the back nine to play.”

Let’s salute an Irishman who is truly of his time. He had greatness thrust upon him as a nation builder. Possibly, he wasn’t appreciated as much as he should have been. And when the tide turned, he stood up to be counted, but before anybody could get out an abacus, he was gone — off to make his fortune in the land of ‘hope and glory’.

Please come home, Seanie. Give up your oul bankruptcy there in the States and come back and grace us with your presence once more. Right now, more than ever, this country needs people like you. People who might actually pay their debts rather than lumping them onto the citizens.